LAPORTE – The Warsaw Lady Tigers found themselves in a familiar position, down double digits at halftime, this time at LaPorte Saturday afternoon. And as has been the case before, the Lady Tigers fought back to make a game of it, having the ball with a chance to take a lead on four occasions in the fourth quarter before falling 53-42 to the Lady Slicers. The big bugaboo for Warsaw, as has been the case much of the season, was taking care of the basketball. While falling behind 23-11 at halftime, the Lady Tigers turned the ball over 16 times in the first 16 minutes. Then after drawing close in the final period, they lost possession of the ball seven times over the last five minutes. Junior Madi Graham led the comeback effort, hitting four three-pointers after the intermission, and all coming after she and her teammates had passed the ball well on the possession; something the Lady Tigers struggled with earlier in the game. “Early on we were pushing the issue, we were out of control, we weren’t getting to our spots, we weren’t faking a pass to make a pass, and that allowed them some easy opportunities to get some turnovers, come down and score.” Warsaw coach Michelle Harter said. “And when you have 16 turnovers in a half it’s going to be difficult to win a game. You put yourself in a hole to try and dig out of. “You can see they know what to do, because in the middle of the third quarter they started doing those things. It’s just doing it every single time, every possession and valuing that basketball each time.” Two of Graham’s four treys came in the third quarter, and she got help from Dayton Groninger, who scored five points in the period as Warsaw outscored LaPorte 17-10 to close the gap to five after three quarters, 33-28. After a Graham three-pointer at the 3:28 mark of the fourth quarter drew Warsaw within one point, 39-38, the Lady Tigers couldn’t quite get over the hump, turning the ball over twice and missing a pair of shots before LaPorte started hitting free throws to put the game away. Still, Harter was pleased with her team’s willingness to fight back after being down. “That’s a very big positive with this team is they never give up, they continue to battle, they don’t ever feel that they’re out of a game. You can see when we hit one shot, then the next shots start falling, we pick up our defensive intensity a little bit and things start going our way,” she said. Graham finished with 14 points and Groninger had nine for the Lady Tigers. Mariah Rivera came off the bench to score eight points for Warsaw. LaPorte’s Jocelyn Colburn finished with a game-high 22 points. Warsaw, now 4-12, hosts Wabash Wednesday night.
